War Never Changes
by Alastarwolfe1022
Summary: ok I revised my original. this is basically my playthrough of fallout from beginning to end with some artistic license XD. rated M for later chapters. this will bc a female sole survivor X piper story. might add DLC stories later
1. chapter one

Chapter one

"It's cold...Why?.. is it so cold? Where am I? Nate? Where are you?... Shuan?!"

Jack's eyes shoot open as she lunges forward "where?!" She looks around focusing on the dirt walls and ceiling, the root cellar?, she realizes, remembering awakening in vault 111 days earlier. Or was it weeks, she couldn't keep track anymore. She'd been hiding here ever since she stumbled out of her frozen prison, where she watched her husband murdered and her son stolen. Scared and alone, her vault suit and 9mm hand gun her only protection, her memories her only comfort. Although, eventually those too became nothing more then a hindrance on her mind, reminding her of how she failed to protect her only child; to save her best friend. Nate, she wondered what would he think of her now. Hiding like a cowered in their neighbors old root cellar? Drinking whatever alcohol she could find.

It was because of Nate and his military knowledge that she even managed to make it out of the vault in the first place. He had spent years taking Jack to the shooting range, teaching her how to find food, water, shelter; everything he could in case of nuclear armageddon. His years of military training made him if anything smart. Not like the crazy doomsday preppers, namely Jahani, their neighbor and owner of her current hiding spot, sure it was ok now but the root cellar wasn't near deep enough to survive an atom bomb. She assumed Jahani had perished like everyone else from sanctuary.

All the knowledge Nate passed on to her and she's just hiding drinking it all away, dreaming of better days as she cries on the floor. She sits up, her back agents the makeshift bed, she realizes she's running out of food, water... booze. She knows she cant stay here anymore, not if she wants to live... but does she want to live? What's the point? Nates' gone. Shuans' gone. She's all alone... but she has a loaded gun taking her own life would be pretty simple. She looks down at the gun in her hand. What's the alternative go out in this wasteland, this hell of what her world was. Where the radiation has poisoned everything and the raiders take whatevers left. She sighs and opens the holotape player on her pipboy, Nate's holotape... it still sits in there ready for its voice to be heard but she hasn't listened to it, not yet, she hasn't been strong enough. But she's sober, more so then she has been in days anyway. She closes it, her finger over the play button... finally she gathers her courage and presses it; the tape springs to life her heart burns as she hears his voice...

"Oops, haha. Keep those little fingers away... Ah, there we go. Just say it, right there, right there, go ahead. Ah, yay!" She hears Shuan's little giggle in the background and tears well up in her eyes

"Hi honey, listen...

I don't think Shaun and I need to tell you how great of a mother you are. But, we're going to anyway. You are kind, and loving, and funny, that's right, and patient. So patient, patience of a saint as your mother used to say.

Look, with Shaun and us all being home together it's been an amazing year but even so I know our best days are yet to come. There will be changes sure, things we'll need to adjust to. I'll rejoin the civilian workforce, you'll shake the dust off your law degree.

But everything we do no matter how hard, we do it for our family.

Now say goodbye Shaun. Bye bye, say bye bye.

Bye honey, we love you" with the last bye she stands up and walks to a small foot locker at the end of the makeshift bed. Inside was ammo and a few old scraps of leather, it's not much to work with but she grabs it all and starts to work.

" first things first scan the area for anything that might be useful. Even an old can of beans can be made into something to help you survive. So look around for anything that could serve as protection." Nate's voice echos in her head

She stitches the leather into some makeshift armor and gathers any other supplies she can find in to an old military back pack.

"Nate's gone, but Shuan... Shaun might still be alive. I have to find him, I have to survive not just for Nate's sake, not just for my own, but for Shaun..."

She runs her fingers through her short albern hair "I have to find my son. I'll do whatever it takes to bring him home." She cocks her gun and heads up the ladder


	2. Chapter two

Chapter 2

Jack emerges from the rusty old root cellar gun in hand. The once beautiful sanctuary hills nothing but a husk of its former self. When she had first left vault 111 she was so taken back by the state of the world and everything that had happened, that after she had spoken to Cogsworh she lost her nerve and immediately ran hid in the old root cellar of her former neighbor, seemingly to gather her thoughts. But unfortunately shortly after entering she found quite alot of alcohal. So what started out as liquid courage quickly became a liquid road block. However after some soul sercerching and the help from a ghost of her past, she pulled herself together and decided she has to find Shaun at all cost, she has to find her son.

The more than slightly dinged up Mr handy was probably still keeping the bushes trimmed at what was once her American dream. The site of haden't gotten any easier to look at. But sure enough there was Cogsworth, trimming away and humming without a care in the world. She kind of envied that, it made him seem innocent to the havoc around him

"Ah! Mrs. Jaxson"

"Actually Cogsworth, I'd appriteate it if you would just call me Jack"

"ma'am?" The robot questioned for a moment. Jack, as she now wished to be called didnt think the robot would really understand her reasoning behind the name change, but she didnt really know how to exsplian herself with out sounding petty. If she was going to save Shaun, she couldn't be Nora Jaxson, wife and mother. She had to be stronger then that, no, she needed to be someone else, someone who could handle themselves in this wasteland.

"Well its just Jack was just a nickname i had a long time ago."

"I understand ma'am. Good to see you mrs. Jack, is everything alright ma'am? I haven't seen you for days I was worried that I might have malfunctioned and never saw you at all"

Jack chuckled at the robots readyness to just go with it and not really question her decision.

"Yea, sorry cogsworh, everything is ok now"

she smiled at the robot. "hey, you said there were people in Concord, right"

"Why yes ma'am, only they aren't as put together as I am, but they only shot at me a few times".

"Well, that's something" people still functioning in this world is something that she found amazing but then again the human race is resilient.

"It does sound like they might be dangerous but its the only lead i have" she hesitates for a moment"I guess I'm headed there, maybe I can at least find some clues"

"Jolly good Mrs. Jack, I'll stay here maintain the home front" cogsworth goes back to trimming the hedges. Even if his carefree demeanor was just programming she admired it just the same.

After bidding the Mr handy goodbye and stocking up on what she could find in the dilapidated homes of her neighbors, she headed to the bridge at the end of sanctuary Hills. At the foot of the bridge lay the body of a wastelander and some sort of mutated dog. Jack walked towards it with caution. "I guess a lot of the animals have suffered the effects of radiation" she thought to herself. the dog looked as though all of its fur had fallen out and the head almost looked like a skinned dog bc the nose tissue was gone. However the human seemed uneffected by radiation, he looked normal. Well as normal as a dead body could look, with that thought the realization that she was in fact looking at a dead body hit her like a brick and her stomach churned. Regaruless it looked as though the two had killed each other. It was almost enough to make Jack lose her nerve as she continued on towards the red rocket gas station.

The station looked a little worse for where but that was to be expected as she got closer she heard a creature of some sort. she lifted her gun with caution, but instead of some thing straight of out a science fiction movie she instead sees a relatively normal looking German Shepherd. The dog perked his ears up and ran to her barking a kind bark.

"Wow hes not even a little mutated, he must belong to someone" She looks around but sees no one, bending down she pets his head, his fur is surprisingly soft, no mats or scabs.

"Hey buddy, what are you doing out here?" His eyes look kind even for a dog, he whimpers a little and licks her hand "did you lose your owner?" She wondered if the body by the bridge was possibly the dogs former owner, maybe? "Well, let stick together then" standing up she looks down at the happy dog "it'll be nice to not have to travel alone, lets go boy" they head towards the red rocket building, hoping theres somthing of use inside.

"bark!! Bark!!" The dog takes an aggressive stance in front of Jack.

"what is a boy?!" Drawing her weapon she hears a sound like shuffling dirt. "What the hell is that sound" suddenly what looks like a giant naked mole rat burst out of the ground and charges Jack. She stands there frozen in fear at the sight of this creature.

'what the hell IS that' she thinks to herself 'come on Jack do something shoot!...move! Anything!'

Like a lion jumping on its prey the dog jumps in grabbing the beast by the neck with a growl. The sound is enough to shake Jack out of it. With an explosion of dirt and rocks five more molerats bust out of the ground.

"Shit!"

Bang! The sound echoes through her ears as one of the molerats collapses dead. The recoil is stronger then she remembers but she never loses control of it.

Always pay attention to your surroundings, Nate's voice echoes through her head, never loose focus, you have to listen to everything, count your targets and take them out.

taking down another molerat she then dashes around the coolant pumps, "how many where there?... The dog got one, then 5 jumped out" whipping around she lets of another round hitting the molerat right in the head. "I got 3 so that's 4" She glances at the dog as he chomps down on yet another Molerat "5... one more! Where is it?" She stands ready to fire at the slightest movement "Ok think Jack, you have to trust all your senses, if you can't see the target maybe you can hear it" she tells herself as she reluctantly closes her eyes. At first, all she can hear is her own heartbeat, "calm down stupid you can hear anything if you have a mini-stroke" she calms her heartbeat and listens, "a growl? The dog, he's still on guard good that means it's close somewhere". The wind blows across the ground and over her body, she listens for any sign of anything. The sound of shifting dirt emerges behind her "bark!" The dog growls. "There!" She spins around in time to see the Molerate burst through the ground like a cannonball. Quickly, almost as if on instinct she lines up her shot and lets loose 2 bullets. One strikes the creature in the shoulder the other, the chest, it collapses at her feet and the tension around her fades. Jack falls to her knees takeing a moment to catch her breath. "Those creatures? Are there more things like that around here" her body trembles as she realizes what they are "I mean they look like just mutated moles, what other things are out here?" Her new companion walks over to her sniffing her hand, he pushes his head under her hand. Coming back to reality Jack looks over at the German shepherd

"thanks boy you really helped me out" She stroked his head and rubs his neck with a smile "guess we deffinetly better stick together".

This dog seemed like a god sent in this apocalyptic wasteland, she didn't know where he came from or who he belonged to but she wasn't about to ditch him. something about him seemed so familiar too like she's met him before. But that's certainly not possible it been over 200 years, everyone she knew is dead. Theres no way anyone or anything in this world will even know she existed. But maybe it was that sense of familiarity that this dog gave her, that comforted her and made her stand up.

"Thanks boy, well this has been an exciting day so far" she smiled at the canine "and its only been like 15 minutes"

After searching the red rocket building Jack and her dog companion continued twords Concord. After the mole rats there were some giant mosquitos drinking from what looked like some kind of two headed cow. She did her best to avoid alerting them by sneaking through some of the abandoned buildings, and her companion followed suit.

Concord was nothing as she remembered though she didn't expect it to be at this point. Still she couldn't escape the feeling in her chest when she sees the patriotic banners still hanging from the buildings and power lines. That's right this crumbling ruin was once a historical land mark, a place where many battles of the revolutionary war were fought. It was easy, in her own life, to forget what Concord and sanctuary actually were, what they symbolized. I guess everything really is gone... and everyone...

BANG!! gun shots echo though the empty streets making Jack's ears ring.

"Gun shots? That means people" she hesitates and thinks for a second "probably bad people" looking down at the dog she nods "let's go boy"


End file.
